About this role
Job summary
The PCN Clinical Pharmacist, will act within their professional boundaries and work as part of the team to provide a safe, efficient and high-quality clinical pharmacy service to the North Southwark population.
You will work fromNorth Southwark Primary Care Network member practices and neighbourhood team-based locationsworking as part of neighbourhood multi-disciplinary teams (MDT) in both patient-facing and non-patient facing roles, delivering integrated services; be involved in the provision of primary care medicines management and optimisation services across neighbourhoods; supported to take responsibility for areas of chronic disease management within a local Neighbourhood Team or practice and undertake clinical medication reviews to proactively manage patients with complex polypharmacy.
You will support the development of medicine-related protocols and guidelines to support medicines use within primary care; provide clinical leadership on medicines optimisation and quality improvement, and support delivery of both local and national medicines related NHS contracts.
You will ensure that the Neighbourhood integrates with community and hospital pharmacy to help utilise skill mix, improve patient outcomes, ensure better access to healthcare and help manage workload. The role is pivotal to improving the quality of care and operational efficiencies so requires motivation and passion to deliver excellent service within general practice
Main duties of the job
Key requirements of the role are:
Promoting safe and effective use of medicines across the primary care landscape
Delivery of structured medication reviews to those identified as being at highest need with the PCN population
To support the quality improvement and inequality agenda
Reducing and managing risk and harm from medicines
Reducing wastage and optimising medicines use across the system
Delivery of other medicines related specifications as directed by the PCN contract
The role requires a commitment to patient centred care and will involve undertaking complex medicines reconciliation on transfer of care and reviews, assessing medicine support needs, health promotion activities, as well as providing information and advice.
You will be required to work with a wide range of stakeholders. It is important that the postholder:-
a) Demonstrates ability to be positive, flexible and most importantly, work as a member of an integrated team
b) Recognises the roles of other colleagues to patient care and liaises with other stakeholders for the collective benefit of patients
c) Is able to recognise personal limitations and refer to more appropriate colleague(s) when necessary
d) Demonstrates use of appropriate communication to gain the co-operation of relevant stakeholders in the local care network to build sustainable relationships
About us
Fourteen practices in north Southwark stand together as Quay Health Solutions (QHS) CommunityInterest Company jointly delivering services that improve outcomes for over 200,000 registered patients. From July 2019 member practices have come together as North Southwark Primary Care Network (PCN) providing the building blocks for at scale service delivery and wider system integration through three Neighbourhoods. These are the delivery units for integrated place-based care, bringing together local health and care organisations (including social care, the voluntary sector and patient groups) to work to deliver more joined up, patient-centred services. As part of the NHS 10-year Plan, QHS has joined with the South Southwark GP Federation, Improving Health Limited (IHL) to partner with Guys & St. Thomas NHS Foundation Trust (GSTT) to deliver the Southwark integrator function.
Neighbourhood health service integrators have been tasked with establishing the foundations and building the relationships needed to deliver proactive, integrated and equitable neighbourhood health services shaped by local communities. Integrators will provide the vital infrastructure, connections and coordination needed to turn policy into practice and bring care closer to home. Since 2017 QHS member practices have pooled resources to develop a team of Clinical Pharmacists in General Practice as part of the NHS England program to deliver the full range of clinical pharmacy services to the population.
Job description Job responsibilities
Knowledge, Skills and Experience
a) Recognises priorities when problem-solving and identifies deviations from normal pattern and is able to refer to senior pharmacist or other clinical staff when appropriate
b) Able to follow legal, ethical, professional and organisational policies/procedures and codes of conduct
c) Involves patients in decisions about prescribed medicines and supporting adherence as per NICE guidelines.
Leadership
a) Demonstrate understanding of the pharmacy role in governance and is able to implement this appropriately within the workplace.
b) Demonstrate understanding of, and contributes to, the workplace vision
c) Engages with Patient Participation Groups (PPGs) and involves PPGs in development of the role and practices
d) Demonstrates ability to improve quality within limitations of service
e) Reviews yearly progress and develop clear plans to achieve results within priorities set by others.
f) Demonstrate ability to motivate self to achieve goals
g) Promotes diversity and equality in people management techniques and leads by example.
h) To deputise for senior pharmacists during periods of absence
Management
a) Demonstrate understanding of the implications of national priorities for the team and/or service
b) Demonstrate understanding of the process for effective resource utilisation
c)Demonstrate understanding of, and conforms to, relevant standards of practice
d) Demonstrates ability to identify and resolve risk management issues according to policy/protocol
e) Follows professional and organisational policies/procedures relating to performance management
f) Demonstrate ability to extend boundaries of service delivery within the team
g) To follow and conform to relevant standards of care and demonstrate professional accountability
Research and Evaluation
a) Demonstrates ability to critically evaluate and review literature
b) Demonstrates ability to identify where there is a gap in the evidence base to support practice
c) Demonstrates ability to generate evidence suitable for presentations at practice and local level
d) Demonstrates ability to apply research evidence base into working place
e) Demonstrates understanding of principles of research governance.
Education, Training and Development
a) Understands and demonstrates the characteristics of a role model to members in the team and/or service
b) Demonstrates understanding of the mentorship process
c) Demonstrates ability to conduct teaching and assessment effectively according to a learning plan with supervision from more experience colleague
d) Demonstrates self-development through continuous professional development activity in line with the General Pharmaceutical Council, working alongside senior clinical pharmacist to identifying areas to develop
e) Participates in the delivery of formal education programmes as appropriate
f) Demonstrates an understanding of current educational policies relevant to working areas of practice and keeps up to date with relevant clinical practice.
g) Ensures appropriate clinical supervision is in place to support development
h) Enrolled into review and appraisal systems within the practice
The wide scope of this role is not an expectation of where the post holder will start but where they aim to be within two years of coming into the role Key aspects of the role include:
Patients Facing Long Term Condition Clinics
See (where appropriate) patients with single or multiple medical problems where medicine optimisation is required (e.g. cardiovascular disease, diabetes, asthma)
Review the on-going need for each medicine, a review of monitoring needs and an opportunity to support patients with their medicines taking ensuring they get the best use of their medicines (i.e. medicines optimisation). Make appropriate recommendations to Senior Pharmacists or GPs for medicine improvement.
Patient FacingStructured ClinicalMedication Review
Undertake clinical structured medication reviews with patients, in line with the PCN contract specifications and produce recommendations for senior clinical pharmacist, nurses and/or GP on prescribing and monitoring.
Patient Facing CareHome MedicationReviews
Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for the senior clinical pharmacist, nurses or GPs on prescribing and monitoring.
Work with care home staff to improve safety of medicines ordering and administration.
Patient FacingDomiciliary ClinicalMedication Review
Undertake clinical medication reviews with patients and produce recommendations for the senior clinical pharmacists, nurses and GPs on prescribing and monitoring.
Attend and refer patients to multidisciplinary case conferences.
Management ofCommon/Minor/Self-Limiting Ailments
Managing caseload of patients with common/minor/self-limiting ailments while working within a scope of practice and limits of competence.
Signposting to community pharmacy and referring to GPs or other healthcare professionals where appropriate
Patients FacingMedicines Support
Provide patient facing clinics for those with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines in the practice
Telephone Medicines Support
Provide a telephone help line for patients with questions, queries and concerns about their medicines.
Medicine Information toPractice Staff andPatients
Answers relevant medicine-related enquiries from GPs, other practice staff, other healthcare teams (e.g. community pharmacy) and patients with queries about medicines.
Suggesting and recommending solutions.
Providing follow up for patients to monitor the effect of any changes
Unplanned HospitalAdmissions
Review the use of medicines most commonly associated with unplanned hospital admissions and readmissions through audit and individual patient reviews.
Put in place changes to reduce the prescribing of these medicines to high-risk patient groups.
Management ofMedicines at Discharge from Hospital
To reconcile medicines following discharge from hospitals, intermediate care and into care homes, including identifying and rectifying unexplained changes and working with patients and community pharmacists to ensure patients receive the medicines they need post discharge.
Set up and manage systems to ensure continuity of medicines supply to high-risk groups of patients (e.g. those with medicine compliance aids or those in care homes).
Signposting
Ensure that patients are referred to the appropriate healthcare professional for the appropriate level of care within an appropriate period of time e.g. pathology results, common/minor ailments, acute conditions, long term condition reviews etc.
Repeat Prescribing
Produce and implement a practice repeat prescribing policy.
Manage the repeat prescribing reauthorisation process by reviewing patient requests for repeat prescriptions and reviewing medicines reaching review dates and flagging up those needing a review.
Ensure patients have appropriate monitoring tests in place when required.
Risk Stratification
Identification of cohorts of patients at high risk of harm from medicines through preprepared practice computer searches.
This might include risks that are patient related, medicine related, or both
Contribute pharmaceutical advice for the development and implementation of new services that have medicinal components (e.g. advice on treatment pathways and patient information leaflets).
Service Development
Analyse, interpret and present medicines data to highlight issues and risks to support decision- making.
Information Management
Undertake clinical audits of prescribing in areas directed by the PCN, feedback the results and implement changes in conjunction with the practice team.
Medicines Safety
Implement changes to medicines that result from MHRA alerts, product withdrawal and other local and national guidance
Implementation ofLocal and NationalGuidelines andFormularyRecommendations
Monitor practice prescribing against the local health economies RAG list and make recommendations to GPs for medicines that should be prescribed by hospital doctors (red drugs) or subject to shared care (amber drugs).
Auditing practices compliance against NICE technology assessment guidance.
Provide newsletters or bulletins on important prescribing messages.
Education and Training
Provide education and training to primary healthcare team on therapeutics and medicines optimisation. Support training and supervision of junior members of staff and trainees
Care Quality Commission
Work with the general practice team to ensure the practice is compliant with CQC standards where medicines are involved.
Public Health
To support public health campaigns.
To provide specialist knowledge on all public health programmes available to the general public.
Person Specification
Qualifications Essential
Masters degree in pharmacy (MPharm) (or equivalent) Mandatory registration with General Pharmaceutical Council
Desirable
Specialist knowledge acquired through post- graduate diploma Level, Primary Care Pharmacy Education Pathway or equivalent training/experience Independent prescriber or working towards/intent of gaining independent prescribing qualification A member of or working towards Faculty membership of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society Member of the Royal Pharmaceutical Society
Experience Essential
Knowledge of GPs and general practice services Knowledge of primary care prescribing, concepts of rational prescribing and strategies for improving prescribing Excellent interpersonal, influencing and negotiating skills Excellent written and verbal communication skills Ability to communicate complex and sensitive information in an understandable form to a variety of audiences Ability to use work-based IT programmes to deliver high quality care Ability to obtain and analyse complex technical information Able to prioritise when problem solving and identify deviations from the normal pattern Able to recognise limitations and refer to seniors or GPs when appropriate Able to work under pressure and meet deadlines Able to produce timely and informative reports Work effectively independently and as a team member Demonstrates accountability for delivering professional expertise and direct service provision
Desirable
Experience of working in a GP practice or Primary Care Network In depth therapeutic and clinical knowledge and understanding of the principles of evidence-based healthcare Ability to plan, manage, monitor, advise and review general medicine optimisation issues in core areas for long term conditions Able to gain acceptance for recommendations and influence, motivate, persuade the audience to comply with the recommendations, agreed course of action where there may be significant barriers Experience of documenting patient care in EMIS
Other requirements Essential
Self-motivated Adaptable and flexible approach to delivering high quality patient care Current DBS Safeguarding adult and children level three Full immunisation status Basic life support training
Desirable
Information Governance toolkit completion
Disclosure and Barring Service Check This post is subject to the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act (Exceptions Order) 1975 and as such it will be necessary for a submission for Disclosure to be made to the Disclosure and Barring Service (formerly known as CRB) to check for any previous criminal convictions.
UK Registration
Applicants must have current UK professional registration. For further information please see NHS Careers website (opens in a new window).
Employer details Employer name Quay Health Solutions CIC
Address Spa Medical Centre
50 Old Jamaica Road
London
North Southwark
SE16 4BL
United Kingdom
Employer's website https://www.quayhealthsolutions.co.uk (Opens in a new tab)